


Mercy

by threewalls



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: M/M, Metaphysics, Science, Self-Harm, Yami no Matsuei Bookverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-08
Updated: 2007-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Alchemist no longer counts the years. They have been too kind to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Advances](https://archiveofourown.org/works/160268) by [threewalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls). 



Once it became apparent that the Lord's household no longer aged, the Alchemist had claimed responsibility, naturally. What alchemist hasn't dreamed of uncovering the Stone, transmuting base humanity into golden perpetual youth? His methods would always be a secret, he had said, but the results could be bought.

The Steward had taken the bait, ducats dancing in his eyes, as he imagined a dowry in dreams distilled, bottled and sold. Perhaps that vision had trembled as the Steward laid himself out in his own bed; the Steward had, though his eyes had been closed. His hair had smelt of rosemary, and the skin of his shoulder had been soft and spicy-sweet against the Alchemist's lips.

The Alchemist's memory of the night is a vivid one, like the bruises the Steward left moments after that kiss, only a kiss, when the Alchemist admitted that, in truth, he did not know why they were yet so young. The Steward nurses a grudge, making the Alchemist smile at every narrowed glance and petty bristled comment about how much further the Alchemist used to be able to stretch his coin. He's not the only one to remember that night. They have not again been as close as they were that night-- but, the Alchemist tells himself, cutting the reverie away, forever will always be too long for lies.

Ruka maintains that her Angel blessed them, blessed her to remain a girl just shy of womanhood forever. The timing would coincide with the Alchemist's findings, but unlike Ruka, he continues to ask, 'if so, what then'?

Time no longer bounds the potential breadth of his knowledge, but in seeking to know everything, he learns nothing. He nearly destroys the dungeon when he leaves a Bunsen burning too long, but he finds himself more and more entranced by better, more efficient arrangements of glassware and piping. His reagent bottles gather dust.

Time has not stopped, though this is easy to forget. The years, like the villagers, are now like grains of sand in an hourglass. The Alchemist gets lost in the market, finding the stallholders he looks for have become their sons. Only the Lord's household is static, his son (still not a man), his staff. Once upon a time, the Steward's ledgers recorded rent from Ruka and her father but the Alchemist can find no one who remembers their living anywhere but their rooms in the North Wing.

One afternoon, the Alchemist wakes from a dream where Ruka's Angel called him by a name that wasn't his, with the certain fear that immortality is not the same as longevity, or even prolonged youth. He turns from the half-finished constructions of copper and glass, from his library of alchemical tomes with uncut pages to the common detritus of the Estate, at least what remains of it. More years than he had realised have passed, the Alchemist finds, counting the dates in the margins with growing unease. He knows no more than he told the Steward, that night. He cannot recall why it has taken so long to realise that the nature of man, if they are still men, is the only question he needs to answer.

Though time no longer touches their bodies, the Alchemist wonders that their souls could be so inviolate. His old journals are filled with a direct, concise hand nothing like the illegible scrawl of his journals since-- but why check his notes, why try to remember, when he has the time to repeat his experiments anew? The Angel visited so long ago, long enough that the Alchemist trusts his crumbling journal pages over Ruka's cheerful faith. 'We were not kind to the Angel,' he notes into a clean journal, trying to mimick a careful hand, 'to merit such mercy.' If so, what then?

When he finishes his review of the existing documentation, there is nothing left but empirical study. The Alchemist clears a space on a bench, wipes away the dust and washes the wood down with rubbing alcohol. He lays out a hat pin, an ivory-handled shaving razor, a knife from the kitchen and also a cleaver; he tells his familiar he hopes it will not come to that, and manages to smile. His familiar has bells fastened to one clawed foot, for aid, if necessary. The Alchemist rolls up his sleeve.

Whatever they are, they can still feel pain.

Every time, the Alchemist injures himself a little deeper. The wound takes progressively longer to heal, whether due to the increased severity, his decreasing strength or a combination of both, but he cannot keep the wound, or a scar, or even the blood, that spurts freely now with each deep incision and disappears miraculous along with it. His familiar flies in erratic orbits around his workstation, ringing in vain.

Someone shouts in the distance, glass shatters, the Alchemist turns too slow. To the Steward, his injury is like red to a bull, his eyes rolling like a horse gone mad. His grip above the Alchemist's elbow is bruising, like the Steward's mouth on his, like his body impacting rough dungeon stone. The Alchemist fights: kicking, pushing, holding on.

"This is wrong," the Steward says, gasping. His eyes focus, finally, on the abraded pink of the Alchemist's forearm fading exactly as his grip fails. "What are you?"

Glass shards fall through the jagged tears in the Steward's white sleeve, tinkling as they break on the floor. Behind him, the Alchemist can see footprints of glass.

"What have we become?"

The Steward slips to his knees before the Alchemist, who feels such a powerful sense of déjà vu that his gorge rises and he feels his eyes prickle with smoke that isn't there. Mindful of the glass, the Alchemist kneels. This kiss is gentle, on the Steward's cheek, his brow, his closed eyes. His skin tastes of salt, not spice, and the Alchemist does not kiss his lips. However much time they have, they have time enough to wait.

"I don't know."


End file.
